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Do you have any suggestions how I should spend my time if I want to be a successful web designer?

by overground55
14 replies
I have chosen to be a web designer, because I was always artistic growing up, and I believe that web design, and anything web related, is where the money will be in the foreseeable future. In addition to this, I am more interested at this point in my life in working for a company, a 9 - 5 if you will, and something that once I have become proficient at, I can support a family with.

To help you understand the predicament as I see it, I envy my brother because he is going in to be an electrical engineer. Although I know the workload is very intense, he has a clear cut path to success. Take x many courses, get good grades, get your degree, and start applying. Boom. Good paying job doing work you'll probably enjoy more than flipping burgers.

With web design I am having a very difficult time figuring out how to spend my time. I am willing to get an associates if that would help, but I get alot of advice from folks in this industry that the best path is being self taught. To me this is daunting and I don't know how to spend my time.

I am older now, at age 25. I understand there are no shortcuts to this industry, but I do believe there are ways of being more effective in your approach to learning and growing as a designer, so I am turning to you folks to learn from you what works and what does not work, and the things you did that felt like time well spent as you worked towards being a hirable professional.

Do I learn html, css, javascript etc... then start building websites? Do I start building websites, and pick up the knowledge along the way using google?

Should I be building certain kinds of websites for my portfolio, to show off my understanding of these languages? What kinds specifically would you recommend?

Is it fair to say that you need to be fluent, or do most designers just know the basics, and pick up what they need as a situation arises?

I have many more questions, but I don't want to overwhelm. I just would like to get some advice on how I can proceed confidently, because scheduling time in my day to work on this is important to me, and if I can be very focused as to what I am spending my time on, and why, then the happier I will be. Thanks designers, I am glad to be a part of this .
#designer #spend #successful #suggestions #time #web
  • Profile picture of the author Jason Kanigan
    It's great that you have picked a goal.

    You do have to have technical skill for this goal you've picked out.

    You also need to get clients.

    And to get clients, you need to be spending well over half of your time looking for and qualifying prospects.

    More than half!

    In fact, as you are just beginning, I recommend three-quarters. That's SIX hours of your eight hour day.

    Six hours NOT playing around with your designs.

    Six hours NOT goofing around with code.

    Six hours NOT going for coffee, or otherwise wasting time.

    Otherwise, you'll never get the business to support your designer habit.

    As a business owner, you don't get to do The Thing You Want To Do very often...unless you can outsource functions. At this point, you have to figure it out for yourself. No one can do it for you. Your road to success is yours alone.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
    1. learn the coding languages
    2. take some design courses - will tell you why...
    3. Learn some website marketing - will tell you why...
    4. Learn some general business courses - will tell you why...
    5. learn photoshop, dreamweaver, and get some basics on some cms softwares

    Ok - so I'm going to disqualify myself a bit by telling you I"m not a web designer. But I can tell you based on experience in other things why I think that is the list to start with.

    I'm confident someone here will chime in with more.

    #2 - I'm a pretty crafty artsy fartsy person myself. But it doesn't mean I'm the best qualified to do design (even on my own sites). You might find web design to be completely different to "being artistic" and to be honest a lot of web design is not just about being artistic.

    #3 - If you are designing for websites that are marketing something (about 99% of them out there is my guess) then you need to know why certain things need to have placement in certain areas on websites. This is going to have an effect on how you design things. This is going to make you stronger with future clients in helping them create the best design for them with maximum effect.

    #4 - Don't pin yourself into a 9-5! Why not start your own web design business? You set the hours, you decide on what to work on, and you are not subject to what a boss telling you what to do! Not saying you couldn't start out working for someone else, but having a bit of a business background will help you down the road if you decided to do your own thing.


    There are trade schools for the web design thing. I'd jump into one of those and see what courses they offer.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by overground55 View Post

      I am more interested at this point in my life in working for a company, a 9 - 5 if you will, and something that once I have become proficient at, I can support a family with.
      Originally Posted by Jason Kanigan View Post


      You also need to get clients.
      Jason, I'm not confident OP understands that most web designers (or the ones I know at least) are self run businesses.
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    • Profile picture of the author overground55
      Thanks for the response Jill, you are correct in that I was unaware that companies do not tend to hire someone trained as a web designer. So in your experience, it is not wise to go to school for web design if I want to work for someone else? Is there something in this field in which companies tend to want to hire you if your trained in it? I am not particularly interested in web design as a hobby or a personal business. I don't want to start my own business particularly, not at this point, I want something more reliable, something that requires less legwork. That is why I am interested in working for someone else, but that being said, I would like to know what an employer would look for in someone in this field, if there is a market for such a thing.
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve B
        overground55,

        I am going to give you some different advice from those that have already spoken.

        You said you were interested in working for somebody else, a company offering 9-5 so you can support your family.

        You are looking for some security, a consistent paycheck, and I can guarantee that you won't find that in starting your own business or by becoming an Internet marketer. Sure, maybe some day a long way down the road that could be the result, but it's not a sure thing and many, many hard working people in IM never make it.

        I would suggest you find a company that offers the type of job that would be your "ideal" and see the type of education and work experience that would be needed to land that job. Talk to a career counselor and get the education and/or training that will lead to the career path you choose.

        You will find your dream job working for a company a lot quicker if you have the education and training that they require . . . rather than trying to strike out on your own and learn all these "Internet" languages and marketing skills.

        Mind you . . . I'm not trying to talk you out of choosing IM as a career if that's what you truly want. However, it sounds to me like you don't know what career path to take just yet and that you would rather have the structure and security of a more typical corporate position as you begin your married life.

        Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author quadagon
    Originally Posted by overground55 View Post

    I have chosen to be a web designer, because I was always artistic growing up, and I believe that web design, and anything web related, is where the money will be in the foreseeable future.
    A !lot of web designers come from a graphics or a codoing background and that's why a lot of web designers suck.

    Getting a nice looking website is 2 a penny, you can buy a theme or get something done of fiverr that looks nice.

    What's hard to get are effective web designs. There are very few designers who understand:

    What images to use and why?
    What fonts to use and why?
    How to structure a page and a site.

    So whilst your learning to code pick up some marketing books, psychology books and books on ux.

    This will give you a more complete understanding, more rounded skills and better websites.

    With this under your belt you can switch from a web designer to thee web designer and enjoy the benefits that come with it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by quadagon View Post


      What images to use and why?
      What fonts to use and why?
      How to structure a page and a site.

      So whilst your learning to code pick up some marketing books, psychology books and books on ux.
      I didn't even know there were books based on user experience! Need to have a look at one of those.
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      • Profile picture of the author Cheechee
        The languages you said (HTML, CSS, JS) would probably be fine for the actual page design. If you are talking about an actual job then maybe you should consider learning at least PHP. In order to clarify that for certain you may wish to look at the job descriptions. Don't just take my word for it.

        Actual design of page layout does not require server side scripting. You cannot seriously build a website though without a server side scripting language. Many people just learn Wordpress or something like that. It depends on how far you stretch the meaning of "design". As Steve Jobs said - design is not just about how something looks, it is also how it works (that is from memory so it is not word for word).

        If you are talking of front end design then technically you would not need to know server side, but it would not hurt to know a bit.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gambino
    Great information provided above.

    First, get yourself the education and ability to do the work. Learn about web design and business.

    The second thing I would recommend, would be to focus your marketing efforts on offline businesses. Aim for local (or even businesses that aren't local) and target them with your services. Many businesses - restaurants, local shops, etc - are unaware of the possibilities that an online presence can bring them (more traffic to their site or through their door and increased revenue). Find new businesses and successful businesses that have little or no online presence and present what you're able to do from a web design and marketing standpoint.

    For example, I was traveling for work a while back when I stopped at a "local" diner (essentially a restaurant that wasn't a chain). They had been opened for a few months and they had some pretty unique stuff going on on Friday and Saturday evenings. I got to talking to the owners of the place and asked about their online presence. They had tried to put a website up when they first launched their restaurant but they had bids of thousands of dollars and decided it wasn't worth it. So, I asked what they thought would be reasonable for a website, as a small business, and they thought about $1,000 or so. So, I took a picture on my way out and had my web guy put together a quick wordpress site - took him less than a couple hours - with their photo, the info in their menu, about us, what they serve, their unique offerings on fridays and saturdays, added them to google places and an "order online"" part. Took him no more than a few hours.

    Sent the site over to the owners and they offered me $1,500 for it. I just gave it to them because they were cool guys and I'm not into that business. Literally, no work involved for me, except the few hours of work that I outsource and little content writing.

    Point of the story is that there are a lot of small businesses that don't know how or don't think it's possible to get online until you show them.

    Honestly, I would recommend that to someone who had a good business sense and little or no web design experience because you can always outsource the work.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alex II
      What Gambino said

      I used to be a web designer in my spare time loong time ago... But what I'm telling you is still viable today.

      First up web design is not really designing - and that's what prevented me from getting an education as web designer at the end. Sure, you do some work in photoshop, illustrator or gimp, but a lot of the time you will be coding to get the things placed where they belong. so if you don't like coding or can't see yourself stuck at one problem for hours just to find out all you were missing was a stupid . at the right place don't become a web designer (example exaggerated for making my point).

      If you want to be a designer and really work on the artistic part of the job there are many opportunities for you out there being self employed. You could make themes and templates for many different apps, programs and occasions etc.

      If you don't want to do web design as a hobby you have no chance of getting a job as a web designer. The people applying for those jobs usually have multiple years of experience and are very skilled even for an entry level job - at least that's how it's in europe. About 95% of them are all self taught. The internet is full of free training to become a skilled web designer - but this forum is the wrong place for that.

      So if you still want to become a web designer get going by learning photoshop and illustrator (if you can afford it) or gimp if money is an issue. Along the way start to learn some HTML and CSS. Look at code from cms like wordpress, typo3 etc. and start making themes for free - test your design on all browsers and improve from there. Read a lot, watch a lot of videos and go around and look at how the top 1000 alexa sites are designed, structured and coded. Learn about colors, counter-colors and their associated psychological feelings...
      Don't get a degree, learn it yourself - companies will take you more serious that way.
      To make money along the way you can start doing some banners and logos for a few bucks, then sell some premium themes and scale up from there - but then again you'd end up running your own company.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
        Originally Posted by overground55 View Post

        Thanks for the response Jill, you are correct in that I was unaware that companies do not tend to hire someone trained as a web designer. So in your experience, it is not wise to go to school for web design if I want to work for someone else?
        Well, I didn't say that. If you are working for someone else, there is a good chance you will have to do a lot more than just web design.


        Is there something in this field in which companies tend to want to hire you if your trained in it? I am not particularly interested in web design as a hobby or a personal business. I don't want to start my own business particularly, not at this point, I want something more reliable, something that requires less legwork. That is why I am interested in working for someone else, but that being said, I would like to know what an employer would look for in someone in this field, if there is a market for such a thing.
        I was surfing into craigslist today. One ad was looking for someone to handle a lot of web design, maintence, video, etc etc. Pay was 100k a year, and looked as if it was working for the local town (not where I reside).

        If you want to be working for a company, your best bet is going to be using web design as just one of the skill sets you offer.

        My suggestion is to go into your local ads now, and actually LOOK at what jobs people are looking to fill. Then figure out what things you want to get trained in.

        School is never bad. Decide what skills you want and go ahead and take some courses.
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  • Profile picture of the author Regional Warrior
    Well done to all the Warriors who have posted so far! It is like 2010 again where we just gave the best answers to a particular problem and just shows maybe the forum is not as dead as I thought nice one guys/girls.
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  • Profile picture of the author webmarketer
    Try these--

    1. Look for web designer jobs online. Make a list of jobs from big and small companies. Find out the specialized qualifications required for the job by these companies.

    2. Look for web designer freelancers vying for jobs at Elance and other like sites. Look for the commonality in their credentials--their specialized skill set.

    You have to have the eye for designing. If you have the talent, everything will be easier. If you don't, you can school yourself, why not? But it will take time, a lot of effort and experience if you want to play with the big boys.

    You may have all the coding and design tools down pat--but you still have to have that creative eye, exclusive to you. You said you were artistic as opposed to you are one. Make sure you're picking the right choice and not wanting to become a web designer simply because you're banking on some childhood memory of creativity that you feel you can wield on a whim.
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